"Officials at WDTN have apologized to talk and reality show host Julie Chen a day after she revealed [that] comments from one of the station's former news directors led to her developing a complex about her Asian heritage that ended in plastic surgery," Amelia Robinson wrote Thursday for the Dayton Daily News in Ohio.

...

Jeremy Blacklow, writing for Yahoo News, reported that Chen said she consulted with her mother, who greeted her with silence. "She said, 'This is a deeper conversation that we have to have with your father.' We talked about if this was denying my heritage, and whether or not I should have this done.'

" 'And this agent — he represented the most famous Asian broadcaster out there at the time — you know who I'm talking about and I'm not going to say names.

" 'So, this divided my family. Eventually, my mom said, "You wouldn't have brought this up to me unless this was something that you wanted to do." And they told me that they'd support me, and they'd pay for it, and that they'd be there for me.' "



http://www.theroot.com/blogs/journalisms/station-sorry-racism-toward-julie-chen

The Hardest Thing About Being Beautiful in Asia


While the recent economic boom in South Korea has made the region more familiar to American consumers in terms of K-pop and fashion, the country's plastic surgery industry has come under fire from foreign and local critics. The most common criticism is that Korean women are going under the knife to get "V-line surgery" in order to obtain more "western" features like big, round eyes, double-fold eyelids, small noses, and narrow jaws.

Interestingly, this phenomenon is occurring at a time that models of East Asian descent, such as Korean model Ji-Hye Park, are being chosen for their "traditional" features. They are increasingly gracing the pages of fashion magazines and advertising campaigns in non-Asian countries. The suggestion that Korean women desire more "western" looks clashes with western notion of exotic beauty. When examining the contrasting perspectives on "Asian beauty" — westernized vs. traditional — one can conclude there is no ideal beauty type. Accordingly, popular culture should encourage women to embrace the various forms and subjectivity of beauty.

In South Korea, beauty is a necessity. Being beautiful has become a cutthroat competition for many areas of life, from securing a job to finding a husband. While this exists in many cultures, in South Korea, teenagers are promised plastic surgery as high-school graduation presents. Teenage girls look to western women as role models and in one all-girls' high school, an American teacher with blond hair and big blue eyes is seen by her students as the epitome of beauty. Beauty is linked to future success in life.

The perception that Korean women desire to look "western" oversimplifies this complex plastic surgery craze. Many believe that these women are inspired by the looks of K-pop idols such as Girls Generation. They are not asking their plastic surgeons to make them look like western celebrities, but rather to resemble Korean idols. And yet, the facial features that these entertainers possess, regardless of whether they've had plastic surgery, are traits common amongst Caucasians including bigger eyes and narrow jaws. Perhaps the image of beauty that arises is more of a fusion between some Korean and the western qualities.
http://www.policymic.com/articles/61133/the-hardest-thing-about-being-beautiful-in-asia